In this edition of Classic Coming
Attractions, I look briefly at the career of the
originator of King Kong -
Merian C. Cooper, who had three different incarnations in the movie
industry - first as an documentary film-maker, then as a studio
executive, and finally as an independent producer. As part of this
overview, I've included reviews of five Cooper films that have
recently appeared on DVD - Grass,
Chang, King
Kong, Son of Kong,
and Mighty Joe Young. I also
have my usual rundown of the latest announcements of classic films
coming on DVD; that can be found at the end of the column.

Merian Cooper and Documentary
Film-Making

Born in 1893 in Florida, Merian Cooper was a timid youngster who
threw himself into physical pursuits to compensate. He became
enamored of flying and eventually served as a pilot in World War I.
This only whetted his appetite for adventure and he then found
himself serving in a volunteer American airplane squadron supporting
the Polish army in its war with Russia in 1920. He developed a
friendship with Ernest B. Schoedsack who had a like-minded interest
in exploration and adventure, and experience in film-making. The two
first collaborated on 1922's Ra-Mu,
filmed in Abyssinia. In 1924, they (along with journalist Marguerite
Harrison) traveled to Persia (Iran) where they filmed the annual
migration of the little-known Bakhtiari tribe under the title Grass
(1925). With this success under their belt, the duo then traveled to
Siam (Thailand) to film Chang
(1927), a profile of a family eking out a living on the edge of the
jungle. The results were again positive. Cooper and Schoedsack's
final collaboration of this period was the shooting of footage in
Sudan for use in the 1929 version of The
Four Feathers.

From this period, both Grass
and Chang are available on
DVD. Both have recently been re-released by Milestone Film and
Video.

Grass
(1925)
(re-released on DVD by Milestone on November 15th, 2005)

Film Rating: A-
Disc Ratings (Video/Audio/Extras): B/B/B

Grass is a documentary
that follows Merian C. Cooper, Ernest Schoedsack, and Marguerite
Harrison as they travel through Asia Minor to reach a tribe of
nomads in Iran known as the Bakhtiari. It then documents the
tribe's long trek across deserts, rivers, and mountains in order
to reach summer pasturing for their animals. It is a trek that
the tribe takes every year in order to survive. The footage that
Cooper and Schoedsack managed to shoot is truly amazing not only
in how it manages to capture the events, but also in the shear
drama of what is conveyed.

Most
memorable are the long lines of people and animals spread out across
the snow-covered mountainside as they attempt to cross over to their
destination. The route they take must be carved out of the snow as
they go using the simplest of implements, and many of the people are
reduced to traveling barefoot lest the wet snow destroy the simple
foot coverings they normally wear. Cooper and Schoedsack are behind
the camera the whole time, and the only evidence of the documentary
team are occasional shots of Marguerite Harrison being helped along
the way by some of the Bakhtiari people and several scenes that seem
staged for effect. The outstanding document that is Grass
seemed at the time of its completion doomed to be merely an object
for the academic lecture circuit until it was seen by chance by
Paramount boss Jesse Lasky. His enthusiasm for it resulted in
widespread distribution through Paramount's influence.

Milestone's re-release of Grass
(in conjunction with Image) is remarkably good looking considering
the film's origins. There is substantial scratching in evidence at
times and some scenes are slightly washed out, but overall, the
image is clear and characterized by impressive detail. The disc
includes a stereo soundtrack of traditional Iranian music that fits
the events well and creates an appropriate mood for what's on
screen. Supplementary content consists of an excellent audio
interview of Merian Cooper by film historian Rudy Behlmer that lasts
over an hour and a half. It's a treat to hear Cooper's own comments
on Grass and other aspects of his career. Recommended.

Chang
(1927)
(re-released on DVD by Milestone on November 15th, 2005)

Film Rating: A-
Disc Ratings (Video/Audio/Extras): B+/B/B

Chang is a more intimate
film than Grass, but it's
also more docudrama than true documentary. Cooper and Schoedsack
created a dramatic story about a family living on the edge of
the Siamese jungle and used it as a framework to show many
examples of a way of life that was being threatened by the
encroachment of modern civilization. In the story, villager Kru
and his family struggle to survive by planting and harvesting
rice while the dangers of the jungle threaten them on all sides.
We see efforts that are made by Kru and his fellow villagers to
deal with leopards and tigers that threaten their animals and
their own lives. And we also see what happens when rampaging
elephants (changs) are also a threat. Throughout it all, we are
treated to the people's daily rituals that have defined a way of
life for centuries.

More
than Grass, Chang's
dramatic device really draws the audience into the story and makes
for a very entertaining tale whose 70-odd minutes race by. By all
accounts, the events surrounding the 14 months of time that Cooper
and Schoedsack spent in Siam getting the needed footage would have
made for a fine film in its own right. Schoedsack had to deal with
malaria; Cooper faced death when he slapped a local chief; and some
of the natives died from a cholera outbreak during a lengthy break
in shooting. Cooper and Schoedsack even had to move quickly to edit
the film when they returned to Hollywood for fear that it would be
improperly handled by Paramount in the absence of Jesse Lasky who
was otherwise involved at the time.

Milestone's re-release of Chang,
in conjunction with Image, is even better-looking than Grass.
Based on a preservation copy of the 35mm negative, the image is more
uniformly clear and crisp, and the amount of scratching is not as
severe. There are a few contrast issues, but otherwise, the film
looks better than it has a right to. The stereo score is a winner.
It's been newly composed by Bangkok composer Bruce Gaston and
performed by Fong Naam, a Thailand orchestra whose focus is
traditional music. The disc's supplements include a good audio
commentary by Rudy Behlmer, a colourization test on a part of Chang
done in the 1950s, and extracts from Chang's
original press kit. Recommended.

Merian Cooper and RKO

Cooper's experiences with studio interference on the final version
of The Four Feathers
temporarily soured him on the industry and in the meantime, he
revisited his interest in aviation, investing in various such
concerns in the late 1920s. As a result, he found himself actively
involved with several companies including Pan Am. In 1932, the RKO
Radio film studio was finding itself becoming considerably
rejuvenated under the new leadership of David O. Selznick. Selznick
offered Cooper, an old friend of his, the job of being his executive
assistant, and Cooper leaped at the chance. His time away from the
film industry had whetted Cooper's appetite for a return, but in
addition, he had developed an idea for a film about a giant gorilla
he called Kong. The seed of this idea had been planted many years
ago by an adventure book on Equatorial Africa that had enchanted
Cooper as a youngster, and subsequently fostered by his film-making
adventures with Ernest Schoedsack. Cooper's idea had drawn no
interest in Hollywood from Paramount or Fox, but Selznick was
open-minded partly because he needed Cooper's help greatly with the
ambitious film plans that he had for RKO. Cooper's first credits at
RKO were as associate producer on The
Most Dangerous Game and The
Phantom of Crestwood, but his main efforts were on King
Kong during the latter half of 1932 and the early months
of 1933. The film (for which Cooper took a full producer credit) had
its premiere on March 2nd, 1933 in New York and was immediately a
critical and box office success. That boded well for RKO, because
less than a month previously, David Selznick had left the company
and the vacant position of studio boss had been given to Merian
Cooper who would now be responsible for the success of the entire
studio output, not just his own pet projects. Cooper's reign would
last only for 15 months, but during that time more than three dozen
features bore his name as executive producer including Morning
Glory (Katharine Hepburn's first Academy Award
performance), Flying Down to Rio
(the first Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers teaming), Little
Women (the delightful Katharine Hepburn version), Son
of Kong (a rather weak sequel to the original), and The
Lost Patrol (a classic John Ford action film). By early
1934, however, Cooper was already yearning for the freedom of being
an independent producer again and in May, he resigned as head of
production. He had in mind several ideas for action-adventure
pictures. Resulting from this was She,
completed in 1935 and released by RKO. The
Last Days of Pompeii followed soon thereafter.

From this period, both the Kong films (see reviews below) and four
other Merian Cooper credited films are available on DVD, with at
least one other on the way. The Most
Dangerous Game (1932) used some of the King
Kong sets as well as the services of Fay Wray and Robert
Armstrong from the Kong cast and direction by Ernest Schoedsack.
Leslie Banks and Joel McCrea starred in an offbeat tale of a man who
hunts humans on his own island. Criterion has issued a very fine DVD
edition. Little Women (1933)
was released on DVD by Warner Bros. several years ago and it's an
excellent presentation of the George Stevens-directed and Katharine
Hepburn-starred version of the classic story. Cooper had associate
producer status on the former film and executive producer credit on
the latter. She (1935), a
generally entertaining version of the H. Rider Haggard novel, was
issued by Kino (one of its earliest DVD releases) in quite a decent
version. The Last Days of Pompeii
(1935) has just been released by Warner Bros. in conjunction with
its King Kong releases. Coming in August 2006 is Flying
Down to Rio (1933) which will be part of the second
Astaire & Rogers set from Warner Bros. Cooper was executive
producer on it.

King
Kong: Collector's Edition (1933)
(released on DVD by Warner Bros. on November 22nd, 2005)

Film Rating: A
Disc Ratings (Video/Audio/Extras): A-/B+/A

With its 1933 release of King Kong,
RKO saw that it had a monster hit on its hands and as a
consequence, had considerable confidence in its choice of Merian
C. Cooper as the studio's new production chief. The film was the
culmination of a dream by Cooper (and his close friend Ernest
Schoedsack who co-directed the film) and also the vindication of
his faith in the concept when most of the Hollywood
establishment refused to back his idea. The "beauty and the
beast" story of a giant gorilla found on a remote island
and brought to New York as an entertainment attraction for the
masses seemed to strike a chord with moviegoers due both to the
film's shock value as well as the sympathetic manner in which
Kong was portrayed. The film returned $2 million on a cost of
under $700,000 and occasioned a re-release only five years
later.

Viewed
some 70 plus years after its initial release, King
Kong might seem like just another monster flick to the
uninitiated. But it's far more than that. Filmgoers had never seen
anything quite like Kong on the screen. Oh, actors had dressed up in
ape suits for both horrific and comedic effect before, but the end
result was just what you might expect - unconvincing at best and
laughable when it wasn't supposed to be. Kong was different. He
looked big; he looked real; and he looked scary. He had a
personality of his own and he projected human characteristics that a
viewer could identify with as well. Yet Kong was never more than an
18-inch flexible doll (except for a few scenes that required the
construction of a giant-sized head, a hand, and a leg).

What brought so much of it all to life was the magic of stop-motion
animation. It was animation that basically involved setting up the
desired action on a table that included the model of Kong amongst
whatever scenery was called for and then exposing one frame of film.
Adjustments were then made to the Kong miniature on the special
effects table to reflect the next step in the desired action and
another frame of film was exposed. With film passing through a
camera at 24 frames per second, one can appreciate how long it would
take to get even one minute of completed filming and the degree of
exactness and patience in working that was required. Fortunately,
RKO had Willis O'Brien on its staff. O'Brien was the pioneer of
stop-motion work and had previously had some success with it in
1925's The Lost World. He was
now experimenting with more elaborate effects for a film that was to
be called Creation. It was
never completed, but the work that O'Brien was doing on it did serve
as inspiration for many of the Kong effects and techniques.

The special effects work on Kong went far beyond the basic
stop-motion activity. It included elaborate miniature sets that
combined the stop-motion tables with matte paintings behind them and
paintings on glass in front. In addition, live action footage of the
film's human stars was shot and later projected on miniature screens
placed within the stop-motion sets. Thus were created many of the
scenes that show Kong interacting with those characters.

In addition to the realistic visual effects, Cooper and Schoedsack
were also looking for the right sounds to enhance the spectacle.
Murray Spivack was tasked with producing all the sound effects for
the film and he found himself developing new ways of creating and
mixing sounds that would become industry standards. For the first
time also, an entirely new motion picture film score was created
especially for the film incorporating many of the music score forms
that would also become standard procedure in later years - for
example, themes for each of the main characters that would recur at
appropriate times throughout the film. For this, credit goes to
composer Max Steiner who would come to be recognized as one of the
giants of motion picture scoring.

With all the attention to Kong, one can tend to overlook the
flesh-and-blood actors in the film. Robert Armstrong plays the
adventurer and showman, Carl Denham, who brings Kong to New York.
Denham was obviously modeled on Merian Cooper himself, just as
Ernest Schoedsack had himself immortalized in the cast as the
Denham's co-adventurer Jack Driscoll, as portrayed by Bruce Cabot.
Fay Wray, of course, is the best-remembered member of the cast as
Ann Darrow who gets captured by Kong on the island where he is first
found and later finds herself carried to the top of the Empire State
Building by Kong. Armstrong and Wray particularly give reasonable
portrayals, given their clichéd parts, that for the most part
manage to avoid the rather mannered performances that tended to
dominate more than a few early sound films. Viewers should keep
their eyes open for Cooper and Schoedsack themselves, as they make
cameo appearances as the flyers of the plane that's responsible for
the film's climactic moment.

Warner Bros.' two-disc release of King
Kong on DVD has been a number of years in coming as the
studio tried to find the best possible elements to work from. It's
an understatement to say that the wait has been worth it. Although
the film's original elements no longer exist and a version edited to
fit the needs of the Production Code in the late 1930s had been the
standard available for many years, Warners was able to utilize
various versions of film available domestically and abroad in a
thorough restoration that recreates the original film quite
majestically. The full frame image offers very fine image detail and
moderate film grain that gives a very film-like viewing experience.
Contrast is good with blacks being very deep and whites acceptably
clean. This is far and away the best I have ever seen the film look.
The mono sound is in great shape offering clear dialogue and
nicely-defined sound effects. There is some minor background hiss,
but it's never intrusive. Max Steiner's score sounds fine and the
film's overture is included. English, French, and Spanish subtitles
are provided.

The set's supplements are superb. The first disc contains an audio
commentary by visual effects veterans Ray Harryhausen and Ken
Ralston, with comments interpolated from past interviews with Merian
Cooper and Fay Wray. The commentary is an entertaining one, using
what's on the screen to prompt memories that result in great
reminiscences or anecdotes rather than providing in-depth analyses
of methodologies and the like. Cooper and Wray's comments are
limited, but usually pertinent. The other supplement on the first
disc is a trailer gallery of eight films with which Cooper was
involved. The titles are: Flying Down to
Rio, King Kong,
Son of Kong, Fort
Apache, 3 Godfathers,
Mighty Joe Young, She
Wore a Yellow Ribbon, and The
Searchers.

Disc two contains three supplements. The first is a detailed
profile of Merian Cooper prepared by Kevin Brownlow's Photoplay
Productions, entitled I'm King Kong! The
Exploits of Merian C. Cooper. Clocking in at just under
an hour in length, this gives good insight into Cooper's career
utilizing plenty of film clips and comments from various film
historians and Cooper biographers. Even more impressive is a
two-and-a-half hour documentary in seven parts that conveys
everything you could possibly want to know about the making-of the
film. RKO Production 601: The Making of
Kong, Eighth Wonder of the World is accessible by
play-all or individual chapter options. Its highlight is the section
dealing with the re-creation of "The Spider Pit", one of
the film's sequences that was cut from the final version because
Cooper felt that it slowed down the action. Peter Jackson, director
of the new forthcoming King Kong
theatrical feature, along with his associates managed to recreate
the sequence using existing historical information on it and
stop-motion techniques replicating the original methods. The
resulting six-minute sequence (which is included on the disc) is
amazingly faithful to the look and feel of the original feature. It
was obviously a true labour of love and is almost worth the price of
the disc alone. Rounding out the second disc is original footage
from the Willis O'Brien Creation
film, accompanied by narration by Ray Harryhausen. Very highly
recommended.

Potential purchasers should note that King
Kong is available in three ways - the stand alone
two-disc offering reviewed here, as the same two-disc set included
in the King Kong Collection that also includes separate discs of
Son of Kong and Mighty
Joe Young, and as the two-disc set included in a special
embossed tin that also includes various reproductions of posters and
the original program as well as an offer to obtain a 27x40 poster by
mail for a nominal shipping cost.

The
Son of Kong (1933)
(released on DVD by Warner Bros. on November 22nd, 2005)

Film Rating: C
Disc Ratings (Video/Audio/Extras): B+/B-/D

Work on a sequel to King Kong
began almost immediately upon the original's release and its
very positive reception. Many of the same animation techniques
and sets were used once again, supplemented by some location
work on Santa Catalina Island and the Santa Monica pier. As for
the cast, only Robert Armstrong and Frank Reicher returned, to
play Carl Denham and the ship's captain respectively. The story
finds Denham attracted back to Skull Island in search of a
treasure, but instead he discovers a younger version of Kong.
Helen Mack appears as the young woman in peril. Action is
restricted to the island this time, but we get an earthquake
thrown in for good measure.

Otherwise
the story is quite derivative, right down to the young Kong climbing
to the highest point of land and trying to save one of the main
characters even as he loses his own life. At no time does one get
the impression of the attention to detail that went into King
Kong. Certainly the young Kong seems like a very plain
and tame version of the original, even allowing for the supposed
difference in age. The film is brought in at under 70 minutes and
has a distinct quickie B flavour to it.

Other than during a few short sequences, the image transfer on The
Son of Kong looks almost as good as that for King
Kong. Blacks are deep and the image demonstrates a nicely
detailed gray scale. Modest grain is in evidence. The mono sound is
quite workable although there is more hiss in evidence than on King
Kong. English, French, and Spanish subtitles are
provided. The only supplement is the theatrical trailer.